Related papers: Sphinx: a massively multiplexed fiber positioner f…
AAOmega is the new spectrograph for the 2dF fibre-positioning system on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. It is a bench-mounted, double-beamed design, using volume phase holographic (VPH) gratings and articulating cameras. It is fed by 392…
Optical fibres have already played a huge part in ground based astronomical instrumentation, however, with the revolution in photonics currently taking place new fibre technologies and integrated optical devices are likely to have a…
We present the Cone of Darkness, an application to automatically configure blank-sky positions for a series of stacked, wide-field observations, such as those carried out by the SAMI instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). The…
The Fiber Optical Cable and Connector System (FOCCoS), provides optical connection between 2400 positioners and a set of spectrographs by an optical fibers cable as part of Subaru PFS instrument. Each positioner retains one fiber entrance…
Starbugs are miniature piezoelectric walking robots that can be operated in parallel to position many payloads like optical fibers across a telescopes focal plane. They consist of two concentric piezoelectric ceramic tubes that walk with…
Aima. To determine to what extent the problem of forward fitting visibilities measured by the Spectrometer/Telescope Imaging X-rays (STIX) on-board Solar Orbiter is more challenging with respect to the same problem in the case of previous…
The results of speckle interferometric observations at the 4.1 m SOAR telescope in 2016 and 2017 are given, totaling 2483 measurements of 1570 resolved pairs and 609 non-resolutions. We describe briefly recent changes in the instrument and…
The black hole X-ray binary (BHXRB) Swift J151857.0-572147 was discovered during its first outburst in March 2024. We review the archive of NICER observations from this outburst, focusing on the soft states. We select spectra for which the…
We present a new Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) named Steve for performing type Ia supernova (SNIa) cosmology fits. This advances previous works by including an improved treatment of Malmquist bias, accounting for additional sources of…
4MOST (4m Multi Object Spectroscopic Telescope) is a spectroscopic facility that will be installed on ESO's VISTA around 2020. The science rationale of this facility are to be found in the ASTRONET Science Vision for European Astronomy (de…
The available set of spin and shape modelled asteroids is strongly biased against slowly rotating targets and those with low lightcurve amplitudes. As a consequence of these selection effects, the current picture of asteroid spin axis…
In Run 8 at RHIC, STAR significantly enhanced its forward acceptance relative to previous years with the commissioning of a new detector, the Forward Meson Spectrometer (FMS). The large geometrical acceptance of the FMS allows us to extend…
We recommend a conceptual design study for a spectroscopic facility in the southern hemisphere comprising a large diameter telescope, fiber system, and spectrographs collectively optimized for massively-multiplexed spectroscopy. As a…
Quadruped mammals coordinate spinal bending and axial compression to enhance locomotion agility and efficiency. However, existing robotic spines typically lack the active compliance required to support such dynamic behaviours. We present…
The spin of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) is directly related to the radiative efficiency of accretion on to the hole, and therefore impacts the amount of fuel required for the black hole to reach a certain mass. Thus, a knowledge of the…
The TAIPAN instrument, currently being developed for the Australian Astronomical Observatory's UK Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, makes use of the AAO's Starbug technology to deploy 150 science fibres to target positions on…
High-precision spectrographs play a key role in exoplanet searches using the radial velocity technique. But at the accuracy level of 1 m.s-1, required for super-Earth characterization, stability of fiber-fed spectrograph performance is…
The ability to position multiple miniaturized wavefront sensors precisely over large focal surfaces are advantageous to multi-object adaptive optics. The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) has prototyped a compact and lightweight…
We are constructing a Silicon Vertex Tracker detector (VTX) for the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. Our main motivation is to enable measurements of heavy flavor production (charm and beauty) in p+p, p+d and A+A collisions. Such data will…
Stage IV large scale structure surveys are promising probes of gravity on cosmological scales. Due to the vast model-space in the modified gravity literature, model-independent parameterisations represent useful and scalable ways to test…